My husband loves tarts. Pies are a source of joy, but he likes nothing better than to sink his teeth into a fruit custard tart. The fruitier the better.

The summer provides a cornucopia of fresh fruit: fat little blueberries, raspberries, peaches and apricots just to name a few.

Today’s recipe is dedicated to all the tart lovers out there - Honey-Glazed Peach Tart. For the crust, I use John Bishop’s pastry recipe. It’s simple, easy to make and serves as a delicious platform for any fruit and custard topping.

Pastry

• 1 1/2 cups white flour sifted
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, not soft
• 1/3 cup of icing sugar

Combine flour, butter and icing sugar in a food processor until it forms a ball. Trace the bottom of a 10 inch springform pan onto parchment paper. Cut out the circle and place it in the pan. This will make it easier to remote the tart onto a serving plate after it is baked. Use approximately 2/3 of the dough to line the bottom of the pan, and press the remainder up the sides. It works well to form it into a roll first, and then press it evenly up the sides (about 1 inch/2.5 cm). You can also just roll this into a regular glass pie plate if you don’t have a springform pan.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Bake crust until golden brown for about 25 minutes, pricking crust with a fork if bubbles form.

Filling
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
6 ripe medium peaches, peeled, halved, pitted, cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices (about 4 cups)
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons sliced almonds
2 tablespoons peach preserves, melted

For filling:
Mix sugar, flour, and lemon peel in large bowl to blend. Add peaches and toss to coat. Pour into baked crust. Drizzle honey over peach mixture; dot with butter and sprinkle with almonds. Bake until peaches are tender and almonds are toasted, about 35 minutes. Brush fruit and almonds with peach preserves. Cool 15 minutes before serving. (Can be made 6 hours ahead. Store tart at room temperature.)

Mascarpone Cream
1 cup chilled whipping cream
6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese*
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

For mascarpone cream:
Using electric mixer, beat cream, mascarpone, sugar, and vanilla in large bowl until peaks form. Slice tart into 6 wedges and serve with dollops of mascarpone cream.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Entertaining, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.